Playing The Best Deck

Lately, I've been noticing something. For the first time in my (short) competitive Magic career, I have been playing The Best Deck. Everyone knows what the best deck is right now. It's Jund. Jund has power, consistency, and cascade (into power). It has a wide variety of angles, it can attack from aggro and control. Essentially, I'm in love. Jund does have a few weaknesses, like Baneslayer Angel, but lately decks have been playing 2x Terminate main, something which I'll probably have to do.

This is something I partially lucked into. When Faeries and Five-Color were the best decks, I didn't play them since I didn't have the cards or the skill to do so. When ALA came out, and Jund rose up to a borderline Tier-1 strategy, I realised that after the rotation it would survive intact. So I decided to get good at it now. I started playing Jund before M10 came out.

But never, never did I imagine I would end up playing The Best Deck. Everyone said, even me, that once control shapes up, Jund isn't that good anymore: but it is. It has card advantage, card quality, and powerful explosive starts. Essentially it shares the traits of Faeries.

Faeries is a control deck that can go aggro at a moment's notice. Jund is an aggro deck that can go control at a moment's notice. Both have card advantage. Bloodbraid Elf vs. Cryptic Command. Both have strong beasts: Mistbind Clique vs. Broodmate Dragon. And in both decks, the mirror is the most important to side against.

I am running eight sideboard cards in my sideboard this week to combat Jund. 4 Deathmark, 4 Goblin Ruinblaster. Why? Because just about every time I actually lose a match, it's to Jund.

It's a weird experience, to be honest. Everyone was talking about the evil Fae menace last year, and I stuck by that it was a good deck and perfectly legitimate, but beatable. Now? I'm playing that deck. People everywhere are talking about beating Jund, about how they can't beat Jund, about how they're sick of Jund: and I realise I'm playing That Deck.

Now, I'm a competitive player, and for any competitive player right now, I recommend you check your schedule and make sure it's blank for the next two hours, since there's a link I'm going to provide that you must, repeat, MUST read in order to cultivate the mindset of a competitive player.

So I don't see anything inherently wrong with playing the best deck apart from the sideboard hate it's likely to receive. I had a white deck last week sideboard 15 cards in against me. So is it time to give up Jund? I think not. Jund is a powerful machine, and it's got a long way to go before it's pushed out when Alara rotates. Part of me thinks Jund isn't going anywhere: and so I'll be playing the deck.

Why? Because I'm skilled at it. Because I have the cards. Because I love the deck. But mostly? I like playing the best deck. And Jund, without a doubt, is.

EDIT: Like an absolute dumbass, I forgot the link. Here it is:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Read it all. You might disagree with a lot of the concepts. I did. It actually took me about a year to come to accept it as the cold hard truth. It's a very good use of your time.